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Review: Olympia: The Story of the Ancient Olympic Games by Robin Waterfield — a brilliant little book

In ancient Greece, the Olympics were about winning at any cost

Review by Christopher Hart

In the buff: throwing events in the ancient Olympic GamesALAMY

The Sunday Times, January 13 2019, 12:01am

If the organisers of the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020 really want to capture something of the spirit of the original, then the jumping events should be accompanied by someone playing the oboe; anyone caught cheating should be flogged on the spot; and married women should be banned from spectating entirely. Unmarried maidens, though, would be fine.

At ancient Olympia, excitable girls in the 13-16 age range (when most Greek girls were married off) were allowed in to watch buff young men in their early twenties, stark naked, wrestling with each other. Oh, and said buff youths would be covered in a glistening sheen of olive oil. The Greek idea of “appropriate” really wasn’t the same as ours, was it?

Robin Waterfield’s brilliant little book…

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